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Austin Ramirez: Skeptical hero

A quick-thinking grocery store employee saved an elderly Kansas woman from losing $1,900 to a scam.

An Overland Park Hy-Vee employee saw through the scam and persuaded the woman not to send money to a con artist.

“When I heard her story I thought, ‘No way, this is too familiar,'” Austin Ramirez said.

Ramirez was working the customer service desk at the Hy-Vee at 135th Street and Antioch Road when an 88-year-old woman came in. She said she needed to send $1,900 to the Philippines because her grandson had been in some kind of an accident.

“I started asking questions like, ‘Ma’am, I don’t want to be rude, but are you sure? Do you know your grandson is overseas?’ She said, ‘Well I think so,'” Ramirez recalled.

He remembered less than a month ago another elderly man came in with a similar story about sending money overseas to a grandson in trouble.

This was the second time Ramirez stopped the scam from happening. He talked the woman also out of sending the money and to call the police. Yay Austin Ramirez, you are skeptic hero of the day.